Story in the College of Arts & Sciences

Amelia Fuller

Chemistry professor studies the shapes of proteins and research in the field encourages her to join Santa Clara.

Assistant Professor Amelia Fuller is interested in shapes. Specifically, how the shape of a protein can affect its role in the body.

"I'm looking at how proteins come to adopt the correct shape. Once we know that, as an extension, we want to look at whether we can make nonnatural counterparts that look and do the same things as the natural proteins," she says.

Fuller is the newest member of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemsitry. She is the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the university, and arrived in fall 2008. Previously, she did postdoctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.

Her love of research is what drew her into the field of chemistry. And what drew her to Santa Clara.

"Santa Clara has a really nice balance. There's a focus on research at the undergraduate level, which I really like," she says.